As campaign issues go, missile defense isn’t generating much in the way of attention, but it might end up being a subject of a pretty interesting debate.
John McCain, for example, loves missile defense systems, which he believes are “critical” to protect the country. His campaign argues, “America should never again have to live in the shadow of missile and nuclear attack. As President, John McCain will not trust in the “balance of terror” to protect America, but will work to deploy effective missile defenses to safeguard our people and our homeland.”
On the other hand, we have Barack Obama, who’s been quite candid about his opposition to the status quo on missile defense. In fact, the senator recently explained his desire to shift federal resources away from an “unproven missile defense system.” Obama has said he’s open to the concept, but only if missile defense can be “developed in a way that is pragmatic, cost-effective and will work.” He’s also rejected what he calls the “weaponizing of space.”
With this in mind, Time has a good item in its new issue explaining, “[T]he more than $120 billion spent over 25 years to build the “Star Wars” missile shield has not left the U.S. less vulnerable to attack — some would argue that it has done exactly the opposite, by diverting resources away from dealing with more urgent and plausible threats.”
Those who fear a missile strike on the American mainland from North Korea or Iran — not that either is anywhere close to achieving such capability – the investment in a missile shield, even one whose efficacy is far from clearly established, may seem worthwhile. To those who believe the more salient and insidious threats are those of the type we experienced on 9/11, this shield against a handful of rogue missiles represents an unfortunate diversion of funds that could be used far more effectively to defend the U.S.
The growing consensus among national-security professionals is that a deadly weapon targeting the U.S. is far more likely to be delivered hidden in a shipping container than in the warhead of an intercontinental ballistic missile. But the $10 billion a year the Pentagon devotes to missile defenses is almost twice the amount the U.S. spends on defending the nation’s borders and ports from smuggled weapons.
This sets up a helpful contrast. The Republican presidential candidate thinks the current priorities make sense, and want to keep them in place. The likely Democratic candidate doesn’t (Hillary Clinton’s record on the issue is more “ambiguous“).
From Time’s report:
The nation “continues to assign a higher priority to programs designed to confront conventional military threats, such as ballistic missiles,” says terror expert Stephen Flynn, “than [to] unconventional threats, such as a weapon of mass destruction smuggled into the United States by a ship, train, truck or even private jet.” The same logic led the country to spend 20 times more, last year, on protecting military bases than on safeguarding the infrastructure of U.S. cities. “We essentially are hardening military bases,” Flynn told Congress recently, “and making civilian assets more attractive, softer targets for our adversaries.”
The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, working out of Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, has military officers peering at computer screens 24/7, looking for telltale signs of missile launches. An array of satellites and a huge floating radar in the Pacific are linked through those officers to ground-based missiles in Alaska and California and interceptor missiles aboard Navy warships. Since 2001, the Pentagon has shot down 34 out of 42 test missiles it has targeted. Critics contend the tests don’t replicate real-world conditions, because the timing and trajectory of the target “incoming” missiles are known beforehand to those trying to shoot them down. These test “attacking” missiles also don’t deploy accompanying decoys designed to confuse any interceptors. Pentagon officials say today’s system is needed because rogue states might develop their missiles in secret, and fire them at the U.S. without testing. Each of those questionable assumptions makes it less likely that the missiles would work, but missile-defense boosters say that risk can’t be ignored.
Vice President Dick Cheney heralded the program’s 25th anniversary – and the continuing need for it – at a gathering hosted by the Heritage Foundation In Georgetown’s Four Seasons hotel on March 11. “In 1972, nine countries had ballistic missiles,” he said. “Today, it is at least 27, and that includes hostile regimes that oppress their own people, seek to intimidate and dominate their neighbors, and actively support terrorist groups.”
But Joseph Cirincione, a missile-defense expert recently named president of the pro-disarmament Ploughshares Fund, told Congress a week earlier that the missile threat faced by the U.S. actually has declined in recent decades. Two-thirds of the nations cited by Cheney “have only short-range ballistic missiles with ranges under 1,000 kilometers – basically Scuds. This is often ignored when officials or experts cite the 30 countries with ballistic missile capability.” The long-range missiles threatening the U.S. have shrunk by 71% over the past 20 years, he said, and are based in Russia and China.
The nature of the threats against the United States has changed considerably since Reagan proposed a “Star Wars” system 25 years ago. One gets the sense that John McCain’s worldview hasn’t changed with them.